


like early flower petals (you're dazzling)

by opalesce



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairies, Flowers, Fluff, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, gratuitous flower crowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalesce/pseuds/opalesce
Summary: Wonwoo thinks that Soonyoung’s hands are softer than any flower petal or butterfly’s wing he’s ever known.





	like early flower petals (you're dazzling)

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is for soonwoonet's anniversary fluff fest!! ♡ it is a total privilege to be able to be a part of swn, i'm so thankful that since joining i've had the opportunity to meet so many friendly, supportive, and talented people! thank you for being such a warm & fun community always and for helping me grow since i was just a tiny soonwoo sprout.
> 
> amber! this wouldn't have even started to be written if not for your encouragement and you've helped me so much both with conceptualizing in the very beginning and most importantly supporting me this entire time. i love you!!!!! 
> 
> kokko! thank you for all of your support for my fairy boys and the countless sweet things you've said about them (and me) it's truly made a big impact and i love you!

_june 15, carnation: passion._

_july 17, white rose: admiration._

 

Wonwoo has definitely developed a crush on a human.

 

It’s not as though relationships between fairies and humans are forbidden. His mother has a second cousin who is happily married to a human, with kids, even.

 

In the beginning, it was what he thought would be a passing curiosity, a singular gesture of goodwill for the sake of preserving nature. Wonwoo had been adventuring by way of trying out different portals between the human world and the realm of the fae. He’d set out to tour some human villages he’d never visited before, to see the regional plantlife.

 

While exploring a particularly sparsely populated area outside a town nearby a portal, Wonwoo spotted a human sitting out in a meadow, tending to plants that had yet to sprout in a small patch of soil.

 

Wonwoo isn’t sure why he initially got into the habit of returning in the hopes of catching another glimpse of the human, then another, and another. It took him a few tries, though, to figure out how to match up the timing of visits. The next time he got the time right, he’d managed to get a slightly closer view, and noticed the human seemed distressed. So, he waited until the human left the meadow before wandering over to the garden to take a look for himself. By pressing his hand to the soil, Wonwoo was able to get a sense of when the seeds had been planted—they should’ve broken ground by then, but hadn’t. He couldn’t help himself from giving them a magical boost.

 

This meant, of course, that Wonwoo had no choice but to return the next day. When the human saw the surfaced seedlings that day, he smiled so big and broad, Wonwoo felt his cheeks go a touch too warm just from witnessing it. At the time, he assured himself he was strictly in this for the wellbeing of the plants. They did legitimately need his help, after all. It seemed like no matter what the human did, eventually something would be off just enough to cause a plant to start to wilt.

 

(That theory fell apart the moment Wonwoo realized he’d gotten to the point of arriving early to make sure he could mend things before the human had a chance to notice anything amiss. Those sad looks the human would get on his face when something went wrong made Wonwoo feel uneasy from his heart down to his stomach.)

 

Over time, it became an attachment, an endearment, a _crush_. It’s hard to resist a human who’s as passionate about nature as Wonwoo has observed this one to be, even if he is still learning the ropes of the actual gardening process. The thought and the heart are what count.

 

It doesn’t hurt that the human is attractive on a visual level, too. Golden-haired with all soft features and an aura full of bright, warm colors, though it pains Wonwoo that he can’t seem to get near enough to see what kind of flower the human is.

 

* * *

 

_primrose._

 

He sits behind a stone just large enough to hide his body from view, if he maneuvers himself the right way. Lanky legs folded up like a pretzel, arms tucked close to his sides, he stretches his neck a little to peek over the top of the stone. His crown of white roses rests on a smaller stone next to him, as it regrettably pokes over top of the bigger one if he’s not careful enough, and he’d really prefer not to be seen and embarrassed.

 

The human is out in the meadow, as always at this time of day, crouched over a patch of soil. At the moment, he’s sprinkling the small, growing flower sprouts with a sky blue watering can. His hands are covered by thick gloves, white with bursts of green patterned all over—Wonwoo’s best guess is that they’re either polka dots or leaves, but they just look like splotches in the distance.

 

After the human finishes up, Wonwoo watches him stand to reveal grass-stained knees and turn to head back home. Wonwoo waits until the human is completely out of view (and even then, a little longer, as a precaution) before he gets up, flower crown in hand. He places it carefully back onto his head while he walks in slow, careful strides toward the garden patch.

 

Wonwoo kneels down at the edge of the patch, eyeing each of the plants. They look good today, he thinks—strong and green. Maybe the human is getting better at this? It used to be that he’d find something that needed his help at least once per week, but so far, this week they haven’t had any problems at all. He feels what he thinks is pride for the human, his heartbeat accelerating. Is it normal, to feel proud of the accomplishments of the person one has a crush on despite not knowing each other, strictly speaking?

 

His fingertip is gingerly brushing the leaf of one sprout when he notices the soft but unnervingly distinct crunch of footsteps in the grass.

 

“Hey! What are you doing?”

 

Wonwoo’s hand snaps back away from the plant to sit clenched in his lap. He turns in the direction of the voice to see the human jogging toward him with an expression Wonwoo isn’t sure whether to read as angry or frightened, but he imagines is probably some combination of both.

 

When the human reaches the patch, he stands over Wonwoo, looking down at him with eyebrows knitted together. “You’re not hurting them, right? This is _my_ garden, you know.” The human looks over the garden, eyes flashing from sprout to sprout.

 

Wonwoo is finally able to make out the radiance of the human’s being. He’s outlined from head to toe in what resembles a brilliant sunrise of carnations, differing shades of pink, red, and orange complementing each other and emanating a dazzling golden glow. Each time the light breeze in the air hits them, the petals tremble and the colors begin to blend together, for a split second a mass of coral-hued light more than anything distinguishable.

 

“A carnation,” he murmurs, raising a hand to adjust his crown. Are humans even supposed to be born with this level of atmosphere attached to them? Wonwoo’s own flowers are quite impressive, of course, a twinkling swirl of white and silver billowing almost like clouds, but he sees other fairies every day with auras notably less lustrous than the one in front of him now. It’s disconcerting.

 

The human squints at Wonwoo, kneeling down right next to him. “What? These are all still babies here,” he waves a hand over the garden patch, “but I don’t have any carnations right now, anyway.”

 

 _You have the most carnations I’ve ever seen in my life_ , Wonwoo thinks.

 

“I mean, I can see them all around you,” Wonwoo tries to explain, every other syllable coming out a bit more clumsily than he’d like. He’s never had the occasion to have to explain something so natural yet so involuntary to someone before. It feels comparable to trying to explain how humans and fairies alike breathe oxygen. “You were born on the fifteenth day of the month of June, right around the summer solstice. That makes you a part of the carnation line.”

 

The reaction the human is giving him, eyes a little wider than before and lips parted just enough to show two front teeth, clues Wonwoo in that it’s possible something he’s said came off weirder than intended.

 

“It’s because I’m a fairy,” he takes a step back, unsure whether it’s more for the human’s benefit or his own. “I can see anybody’s birth flower, animals too. Not yours specifically.”

 

“Do… you know the year I was born, too?”

 

“Well, I’m not the stork, just a fairy.”

 

Wonwoo takes a step closer to the human, back to where he’d stood before. He absently toys with the loose end of a vine hanging from the corner of his shoulder bag, wrapping it around his ring finger only to unfurl it and repeat. The human hasn’t moved from his spot, but looks Wonwoo in the eyes with vaguely unnerving intensity. Wonwoo tries to think back to that book he read as a teenager about the meanings of human body language. His memory is frustratingly unhelpful on the matter of staring, as it turns out. The one detail that keeps jumping out at him is that humans twitch their tails when excited, but obviously that’s wrong. That one was from the book about the behavioral patterns of cats for sure.

 

“I’m Kwon Soonyoung. A… mortal?” Wonwoo’s eyes are drawn to a hand being extended to him at waist-level. Oh, he’s seen humans take part in this custom before.

 

“Kwon Soonyoung of the carnations, I’m Jeon Wonwoo,” he says, “of the white roses.” His own palm connects with Soonyoung’s in the form of a light sideways slap, something he once overheard a townsperson referring to as a ‘high five’. He thinks the sound Soonyoung makes afterward sounds like a stifled laugh, but he’s distracted by the way Soonyoung is smiling at him, both rows of teeth showing and cheeks pushed out farther than Wonwoo would’ve expected they could go.

 

Suddenly, the foremost phenomenon on his mind is the mildly shaky feeling in his stomach.

 

“‘Of the carnations’?” Soonyoung sounds somehow even more enthusiastic than he looks. Wonwoo isn’t sure what the big deal is, but he doesn’t question it. “I like it.”

 

“You’re a being of the carnations, of course that’s what you’d be called.”

 

He’s still processing the fact that the human he’s been _secretly admiring_ is standing right in front of him, making eye contact with him, even talking to him. Soonyoung is taller than previously estimated, only a bit less so than Wonwoo. His head tilts ever so slightly upward when he looks Wonwoo in the eyes, although it doesn’t really need to. The way the sunlight hits Soonyoung’s eyes at this angle gives them a glint that Wonwoo thinks is quite nice. He’ll have to add this to his list of things to thank Mother Nature for when he goes down to the old rowan this week.

 

“You’re a real fairy.” Soonyoung gestures to Wonwoo’s crown.

 

“Yes.” Wonwoo isn’t sure if it’s a question or a statement, but he answers, anyway. “I wanted to help.”

 

“Do you wanna come inside?”

 

Soonyoung’s cottage is just a short walk through the clearing. It turns out, the whole grassy expanse the little garden patch takes its roots in is Soonyoung’s land, gifted to him by his parents. He’s only taken up gardening recently, Wonwoo learns, and aspires to cover as much of the meadow with his own flowers as he can, somewhere down the line.

 

_(“I just have to get a handle on everything,” Soonyoung tells him, with pride shining through in his voice. “Then, all of the sprouts will grow beautifully, and people will be able to come admire them from town.”)_

 

The exterior of the cottage is white, slightly discolored from the wear of weather, with striking dandelion yellow panes adorning two rounded windows, and a matching rounded yellow door emblazoned with the number _10_. Its roof is shingled a subtle gray and sporting a stone chimney. A white bench rests to the side of the front door. There’s less of a formal front yard and more of a chaotic mass of plants scattered in all directions. A curvy cobblestone path winds through from where Wonwoo and Soonyoung stand to the doorway, separating patches of an impressive rainbow of wildflowers and weeds, bushes bearing roses and berries, and a total of five trees of varying size.

 

“I didn’t grow any of these ones myself,” Soonyoung remarks, “they’re just a perk of living here.”

 

“You have a Korean whitebeam?” Wonwoo stares at one of the trees, covered in strong, serrated green tear drop-shaped leaves and clusters of small white flowers. With a bit of focus, he can feel his own body drawing energy from it, a small catch in his throat and tingling warmth in his fingertips.

 

“Is that what it’s called?” Soonyoung follows Wonwoo’s line of vision, a hand tucked into his pocket. “That one’s my favorite, actually.”

 

Of all the trees and all the humans in the world, the human he has a crush on has one of the trees most sacred to the fae planted right in front of his home. Mother Nature works in mysterious ways.

 

Soonyoung’s house is the kind of place that looks like it’d smell like the inside of a bakery, but instead smells fresh and clean, like a spring morning with grass and leaves all spotted with dewdrops. It’s a small space, cozy in the way the front door opens directly into a modest living room area, a comparably quite large stone fireplace in view. The walls are made up of a different kind of stone than the fireplace and covered in framed pictures—some photographs, some hand-drawn—of various types of flowers, hanging by hooks. There’s a kitchen branching off of it, featuring a tiny round table and two wooden chairs cushioned with floral-patterned cloth sitting across from each other. Most notable are the potted plants; a fern on the floor next to the couch in the living room, and two shelves of tiny succulents, one in the living room and one right next to the dining table.

 

“You can sit down,” Soonyoung tells him, walking past Wonwoo and into the kitchen. “It’s okay for you to drink tea, right? Milk, honey?”

 

In truth, Wonwoo doesn’t know what he’s talking about, as he’s never actually had tea before. However, being that honey is the most important—as well as most beloved—food group for just about every fairy, he’s not about to pass up anything he can eat it with.

 

“Honey would be great, thank you,” he replies, easing into one of the dining chairs. He watches Soonyoung fumble through cabinets, shuffling boxes around until pulling two little bags out of one.

 

When Soonyoung returns to the table he has two full ceramic mugs in hand, both white with gold handles, flowers painted onto the fronts. He carefully places the one with blue flowers in front of Wonwoo, and the one with yellow flowers on the other side of the table, then heads back to the kitchen. Wonwoo is toying with the handle of his own mug when Soonyoung comes back, this time with a cloth-covered jar of honey and two spoons.

 

“I added some already, but you’re welcome to more, if you want,” he says, taking the seat across from Wonwoo.

 

Wonwoo watches Soonyoung begin to stir his tea and mimics the action with his own cup. That jar of honey looks appetizing even on its own, but he’s unsure if it’s poor etiquette to add more of it to his drink before even trying it. It probably is. So, he brings the mug up to his lips, slowly as not to spill it, and takes a sip.

 

Oh, it’s delicious. The taste is refreshing, full of seemingly natural notes, though Wonwoo isn’t sure of what, exactly. It smells like flowers, though, and it provides him a pleasant warmth in his chest. Soonyoung added just the right amount of honey to satisfy his craving, too. Wonwoo considers finding out where to get more of this ‘tea’ and bringing some of it home.

 

“What did you mean when you said you wanted to help?” Soonyoung looks at him over the table, casually tapping two fingers on the table.

 

“Well,” Wonwoo starts, “I’ve seen you around a lot, you know? I saw your garden, and I thought you seemed like you care about it a lot, which is good.” The mug is beautifully warm with his palms pressed to either side of it, and the sense of calm it’s giving him is his saving grace. “I noticed… It was only some of them, but they were struggling, so I wanted to save them.”

 

“Oh,” Soonyoung stirs a spoonful more of honey into his tea, “I did wonder how they were pulling through. I’d hoped it was because I’m getting better, but I’m still happy.”

 

“You are getting better! I can help you keep learning—not just with magic. If that’s something you want.” Wonwoo thumbs at a loose leaf in his crown above his ear. “I really like your garden.”

 

Soonyoung, mid-sip of his tea, smiles in a curl around the rim of his cup. “Please do that?”

 

* * *

 

_camellia._

 

Wonwoo has no restraint when it comes to these matters—of the heart, of Soonyoung, of healthy plant upkeep—so, fearing that the hypothetical nerves produced by waiting any longer may eat him alive, he heads back to Soonyoung’s garden the next day.

 

“It’s drooping,” Soonyoung laments, “this one’s leaf, it’s drooping for sure.”

 

They both lay stomach-down on the ground, elbows digging into the grass. Soonyoung has his face pushed up close to the sprouts, scrutinizing each one of them for signs of poor health.

 

Were he not sworn to an agreement that he only teach and withhold his magic “for long term’s sake”, Wonwoo would have fixed it before Soonyoung even had a chance to notice. Right now, he’s really wishing he had done that, because Soonyoung is in visible distress, lip worried between his teeth.

 

“Here, look,” Wonwoo reaches out to gently tap the soil around the afflicted plant with a finger, “it’s just a little overwatered, see?”  


Soonyoung hurriedly pulls both of his gloves off to press his own fingers to the damp soil. He holds them there with eyes locked on the area and furrowed brows as though trying to convince himself that’s all that’s gone wrong.

 

“Can we—is that salvageable?”

 

“Yes! It’s not that bad, the sun will dry up the excess soon.” With slight hesitation, Wonwoo rests his hand on Soonyoung’s shoulder in an attempt to be reassuring. “None of them will die, I promise.”

 

Soonyoung’s gaze shifts back and forth between Wonwoo and the sprout. The expression on his face softens, muscles begin to untense. “Okay. I’ll trust you. You’re a fairy.”

 

A smile blooms across Wonwoo’s lips and he starts to feel flustered by himself, so he bites it back. It feels _nice_ that Soonyoung is capable of putting faith in him when it comes to something so dear, even without the aid of his magic.

 

Still, while he does believe Soonyoung trusts him, he also believes Soonyoung will continue to fret about this until he sees the sprout healthy again for himself.

 

“You know, giving it some shade might help. Think we can put something together?”

 

Soonyoung all but insists on walking Wonwoo home later, with those sun-sparkling eyes of his that make Wonwoo feel compelled to bend to his whims.

 

“So, you definitely don’t live in a tree?” he asks, for the third time today. “I could be up for climbing a tree.”

 

“No,” Wonwoo takes a sideways glance at him, “I live in a regular home, just in another realm. I’m not even small enough to live in a tree.”

 

“You could be. You could shrink and then fly right into a knot in a tree, for all I know.”

 

“I can’t fly.”

 

They walk side-by-side with Soonyoung firing off questions for most of the way. Soonyoung asks about who Wonwoo lives with (a good friend from his old floriography class, Junhui), whether his magic is strictly for use on nature (it is), and did Wonwoo make that crown himself? (He did.) When Soonyoung slows his steps for a few moments and leans closer to admire the crown, his upper arm brushes against Wonwoo’s. The shaky feeling is returning to Wonwoo’s stomach, this time paired with what feels like a whole waterfall of warmth crashing over his abdomen. He finds that the feeling of someone, particularly this someone, having such unfaltering interest in him is both flattering and nerve-wracking.

 

Wonwoo comes to a stop so suddenly that Soonyoung nearly trips to match him. “This is it, here.”

 

He points to an almost perfectly circular formation of tiny red mushrooms directly ahead.

 

“Is that a _fairy ring_?” Soonyoung blinks at the sight, slack-jawed when he tears his eyes away from it to face Wonwoo. “Those are real?”

 

“Fairy _what_? How do you know about these?”

 

“There are _loads_ of stories about them,” Soonyoung practically yells, causing Wonwoo’s shoulders to jolt in surprise. “That any human who stands in one will be transported to another world and be stuck there forever. That you’d be stuffed with fairy food, killed, maybe—”

 

“ _What?_ ”

 

“—and my friend Mingyu told me that one time, his third cousin once-removed stepped just a toe into a fairy ring, and was never seen again.” Soonyoung shrugs. “But, Mingyu probably made it up, actually. Like the time he said an elf jumped out of a tree and gave him a cookie.”

 

Wonwoo feels more and more sincerely baffled with each word that comes out of Soonyoung’s mouth, but on the other hand, the stories he’s rattling off are entertaining, if also mildly offensive. He’s somewhat concerned as to why Soonyoung thought it wise to invite a fairy into his home, if this is the reputation floating around.

 

“I mean, none of that is at all the case,” the corners of Wonwoo’s lips feel almost sore, trying to burst into a smile through his words, “except maybe the story about the elf? I have heard they’ve got a knack for baked goods—anyway, these are just portals, not ‘fairy rings’. And we don’t kill people.”

 

“So, what would happen if I stand in it?”

 

The way Soonyoung is eyeing the portal, leaning so close to it that his face hovers over the edge, Wonwoo can’t help himself.

 

“Give it a try.”

 

He watches intently, one eyebrow raised in amusement, while Soonyoung stares cautiously into the middle of the portal. Wonwoo wonders briefly whether Soonyoung is going to back out. He does end up going for it, though, with only a few moments’ hesitation stepping one foot into the circle, then the other. Soonyoung adjusts the position of his feet, shuffles closer to the center of the circle, and plants himself more firmly in the grass. He squeezes his eyes shut, and when another matter of seconds passes, reopens them.

 

“Why didn’t you just tell me nothing was going to happen?”

 

“You were definitely going to try it, even if I had told you.” Wonwoo laughs, low and barely above the volume of a whisper. “This way was faster.”

 

Soonyoung narrows his eyes and opens his mouth to say something, but relaxes. “That might be true.”

 

“Would I ever be able to go with you? Does that work?” He hops out of the circle just as Wonwoo steps a foot into it.

 

“It’s possible.”

 

Wonwoo bites his lip, a slight flash of teeth visible just before he tugs his earlobe between his thumb and pointer finger, disappearing from Soonyoung’s view in a mist of silvery light. Now that he thinks about it, he’s unsure whether Soonyoung is able to see that, but he hopes so.

 

* * *

 

_dandelion._

 

It takes days before Soonyoung is fully convinced the sprout is recovering, its leaf having returned to a mostly healthy-looking state. Despite all of them currently appearing as they should, he still brings the little shade-providing contraption they put together out to the garden, just in case. They haven’t been able to decide on a name for it, but it’s structured strategically with several toothpicks and covered with a light blue piece of cloth torn from an old table covering in Soonyoung’s cottage.

 

“Hey,” Soonyoung nudges Wonwoo with his elbow. “You wanna go for a walk?”

 

Soonyoung leads Wonwoo in a similar direction as his cottage, only farther out from the clearing, on the brink of a sparse forest. They come to the beginning of a vaguely defined dirt trail that runs almost right up alongside the trees. Wonwoo tips his head up and squints, curious to see how far it reaches, but the shape of it shrinks and blurs out of view in the distance.

 

“I walk this a lot,” Soonyoung nods at the path, “usually when I need to clear my head, or whatever.”

 

They walk for a long stretch of path in surprisingly comfortable silence. Wonwoo has given up on keeping track of how long they’ve been out there; time is a bizarre concept that differs between realms and he doesn’t much care to get the hang of it past a certain point. Instead, he’s started to measure it by his own methods. Today, it’s the number of times Soonyoung’s hand has accidentally collided with his. So far, they’ve been walking for four fleeting hand touches. Each of them is much appreciated, as Soonyoung’s hand is very soft, even though thinking about that makes his stomach act up again.

 

Soonyoung’s pace slows to a near complete stop. His eyes flicker up, to the right, down, farther right, following the flight of a bright blue butterfly just before it perches itself on a flowering bush.

 

“Oh, the honeysuckles bloomed!”

 

He starts toward the bush in slow, cautious movements, which Wonwoo opts to go along with. It turns out to be all for naught, though, as the butterfly flits away into the forest before either of them can get very close. Undeterred, he plucks two honeysuckles off the bush and holds one out for Wonwoo to take.

 

Wonwoo watches as Soonyoung pinches the bottom of the honeysuckle and carefully pulls it out from the middle of the petals in a string, then raises it to his mouth and licks the bead of nectar from it.

 

“Humans eat honeysuckle nectar, too?” Wonwoo quickly works on his own flower and brings the nectar to his lips.

 

“Just for fun, not for meals.” Soonyoung beams, tucking the limp remaining part of the honeysuckle behind his ear. It falls off almost straight away. “Do you eat it on… bread?”

 

“No, usually as a drink, or as dip for some types of roots.”

 

A breeze blows through the trees, mussing Soonyoung’s hair and entirely taking Wonwoo’s crown off of his head. The crown floats through the air and away from the trail before landing on the ground in a patch of clovers, on the opposite side. Wonwoo sighs, relieved that it didn’t get caught in a tree where an elf may have snagged it to bake it into a cake, or whatever elves actually do.

 

Soonyoung picks the crown up off the ground and carefully dusts it off by brushing it against his jeans. Wonwoo inspects the spot where it had been sitting—no stray leaves or petals on the ground, his crown is thankfully intact.

 

Soonyoung tilts his head to the side. “I’ve never seen you without this before. You look good,” his cheeks begin to flush a light pink, “I mean, you look good with it, also. In a different but equal way.”

 

The tint of Soonyoung’s cheeks becomes noticeably rosier when he reaches to place the crown back on top of Wonwoo’s head. Wonwoo loops the tied stem of a flower around his pinky.

 

“You look good, too.”

 

(Soonyoung does look good. The glint of honey blond hair meshing with his carnations, all framing soft pink cheeks makes a breath catch in Wonwoo’s throat.)

 

* * *

 

_lilac._

 

“A bee!” Soonyoung’s voice comes out in a remarkably loud yelp. He flings himself into Wonwoo’s side, both hands grasping at Wonwoo’s arm for security.

 

Wonwoo watches the tiny blur of black and yellow zigzag around them. More so than any bee, it’s the chubby fingers digging into his skin that he feels may do him in.

 

“You don’t like them?” Wonwoo is puzzled, but starts patting Soonyoung’s back. “They’re important to the ecosystem, you know.”

 

“Yeah, but they can also sting us, if they want to,” Soonyoung keeps his eyes on the bee, which is now zooming inbetween the garden sprouts.

 

As far as Wonwoo is concerned, the most unnerving thing about bees is that some of them die afterward if they do sting someone, which has never sat right with him, for whatever reason. This is a bumblebee, though, and he knows for a fact that they don’t do that. Bumblebees can continue stinging even after they’ve stung once, but Wonwoo refrains from mentioning that. Something tells him Soonyoung wouldn’t find the same comfort in it.

 

He flinches when the bee flies up a little closer to his face than he’d like, anyway. If this were Wonwoo’s ideal world, Soonyoung wouldn’t have noticed, but it isn’t and he most certainly has.

 

“You! You don’t like them, either!” Soonyoung untangles an arm from Wonwoo’s to point at him accusingly, but keeps clinging on with the other.

 

“I don’t _dislike_ them,” Wonwoo asserts, “I admire them for all that they do for nature. I’m also concerned because they’ve been on a decline. I just don’t want them on my face.”

 

* * *

 

_oxlip._

 

“This is exactly how they’re supposed to look right now, Soonyoung.” Wonwoo prods the illustration of partially grown daffodils on the page.

 

Today, he brought a few of his old school textbooks that he thought Soonyoung might enjoy. Most of them skew on the more scientific side of gardening; he’d forgotten to grab all but one of the floriography books on his way out the door. Currently, they’re poring over a heavy brown book embossed with shining gold borders around curly title lettering. Some of the pages have visible wear from sheer amount of use over the years—even after graduating, Wonwoo has retained the habit of skimming through them from time to time in case there’s anything he missed the first dozen or so times.

 

“Are you sure? I’m not watering them too much anymore?” Soonyoung rests his cheek in his hand. He can’t seem to stop checking on the sprouts, looking up at them from the page with visible unease.

 

“They’re strong,” Wonwoo assures him, “look at their color, they’re really green. You’re taking perfect care of them.”

 

Soonyoung exhales a relieved sigh. He turns his head toward the stack of books at Wonwoo’s side, most of which are much lighter than the encyclopedic one they have open. With a delighted-sounding noise, he pulls the second from the top out from the pile. It reads _Birth Flowers and Beyond_ in large red letters, with haphazardly drawn flowers decorating the cover, spine, and back.

 

He starts to flip through it, so rapidly Wonwoo can’t imagine he can actually read any of what’s on the pages by the time they go by.

 

“Wait!” Soonyoung’s tongue pokes out between his lips in concentration as he flips the pages backwards until he finds the spot he’s looking for. “Carnations!”

 

Wonwoo examines the page, which is not dedicated solely to carnations but to a long list of flowers beginning with the letter ‘C’. It does feature a disproportionately large illustration of a bright pink carnation, though, relative to the fact that most of the listed flowers have no picture at all.

 

“It says that a carnation on June 15th means _passion_.” Soonyoung looks to Wonwoo. “Do you think that’s true?”

 

Wonwoo nods. “That’s how you do things, I think,” he answers, “with passion. You know? You give things one hundred percent. More than one hundred percent, maybe.”

 

Soonyoung’s entire face scrunches up in a grin, at that, the kind with just the tops of his front teeth showing through his lips, and his cheeks looking extra puffy. (Speaking of Soonyoung’s cheeks, Wonwoo could swear he sees them flush just a touch, but maybe that’s because it’s a warm day.)

 

“Yours is a rose, right?” Soonyoung hooks a finger under a large chunk of pages and pushes them back all at once, then resumes flipping through until he finds the Rs. He runs his hand down a page until he lands on _Rose (white)_. “Which day, exactly?”

 

“July 17th.”

 

Wonwoo already knows what his birth flower means—even were this not his own book he’d brought, a fairy who doesn’t know about their birth flower may as well not know their birthday itself. Soonyoung’s enthusiasm (or _passion_ ) is endearing, though, it radiates right into Wonwoo’s being even more strongly than drawing energy from a rowan. It’s only natural to be excited around Soonyoung.

 

“A white rose on July 17th means _admiration_ ,” Soonyoung reads aloud. “I think it’s got you right, too. The way you see things is really cool. You appreciate them.”

 

* * *

 

_daisy._

 

Wonwoo’s cool cup of iced tea drips condensation onto his hands, his pants, the bench. The sun beating down on them today is sweltering, by May standards.

 

Neither he nor Soonyoung had wanted to stay out in the field any longer than gardening purposes made necessary, so they’d headed back to Soonyoung’s cottage as soon as they could. The bench out front gets more than enough shade from the surrounding trees to make lounging on it relaxing, in combination with the drinks Soonyoung whipped up. Two generous spoonfuls of honey in Wonwoo’s, as Soonyoung had quickly figured out Wonwoo’s affinity for it.

 

“Can you show me your magic?”

 

Wonwoo blinks at him. “I thought you didn’t want me to?”

 

“Not on my garden,” Soonyoung says, “but we’re not in my garden. There’s a lot to work with here.” He puts his drink down in the small space between them to broaden his arms for effect, knocking into Wonwoo’s elbow in the process. “What kind of things can it do, anyway? Can you grow things from scratch, just like that?” He snaps his fingers.

 

“I can grow things without seeds,” Wonwoo nods, “but those don’t last as long as organic plants. They’re more for last-minute situations, or just for fun. Mostly, I use it to keep real plants healthy when I can. Like I was doing for yours.”

 

Wonwoo raises his right hand up and holds it out in front of himself as though about to wave. He curls his index finger forward in repeated motions, and soon, a green sprout pops up out of the grass. Out of the corner of his eye, Wonwoo can see Soonyoung staring in wide-eyed wonder at the process. The plant grows taller and taller, until it forms a bud at the top that slowly begins to unfurl and bloom into a bright yellow sunflower.

 

“Oh my God,” Soonyoung yells, “you actually did it! And I saw it. It just _happened_ right there. There’s a magic flower in my yard.”

 

Wonwoo chuckles, his nose scrunching up. “You like it?” The incredulous look Soonyoung gives him triggers another fit of laughter, this time throwing his head back along with it.

 

He’s still getting out small, residual laughs when he puts his hand back out and tries to regain his focus. This time, every few curls of his finger brings about a new sprout, all of which tinier than the one the sunflower had grown into. They burst out all around the sunflower, one after the other until it’s surrounded in so many Wonwoo finds that he’s lost count. Soonyoung excitedly stammers out a few mismatched syllables that don’t quite make it into any actual words. He gets up with such force that he nearly topples his cup over, before running to stand among the growth.

 

Carnations start to bloom all around Soonyoung’s legs in clusters of purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, and white over wispy stems. Honestly, Wonwoo thinks that Soonyoung’s own carnations are objectively better than the ones he’s creating now. Soonyoung’s have that glow to them, strong and distinct even out in the sunlight, and their coloring is much more vibrant than the artificial ones. More importantly, they’re attached to Soonyoung, and Soonyoung is the most incredible-looking being Wonwoo has ever seen with his own eyes.

 

When all of the carnations have blossomed, Soonyoung crouches down to get a closer look, taking everything in. Wonwoo feels something like a tug where his heart is.

 

* * *

 

 

_flax._

 

_(“Let’s eat together tomorrow?” Soonyoung wipes his hands on his jeans, which Wonwoo thinks must be permanently stained green over the knees. “I’ll make you my favorite.”)_

 

Wonwoo sits across from Soonyoung on a checkered blanket, a covered woven basket between them. They are on what Soonyoung has told him is called a ‘picnic’ here, out in the other end of the meadow. The concept of a picnic is to eat outside, typically in the grass, which is apparently something that humans do not do daily—Wonwoo thinks this is a pity. At home, the first meal of each day is to be eaten among nature with little exception, as it makes for great efficiency with regard to fairies nourishing both themselves and their gardens all in one go.

 

Soonyoung begins pulling things out of the basket one by one: a jar of honey, two pairs of triangular spongy-looking objects wrapped in plastic, one spoon, a small container of blueberries, and two bottled versions of Soonyoung’s delicious homemade iced tea. He distributes one pair of triangle sponges along with one iced tea to Wonwoo, then pushes the blueberries to the middle of the blanket.

 

“For you,” Soonyoung extends the jar of honey to him, “just in case.”

 

Already poking a fingernail through the plastic around the sponges, Wonwoo rests them in his lap to eagerly accept the jar. With the wrapping off, he realizes these are not sponges at all, but pieces of bread squished together around a filling. It’s no wonder he couldn’t recognize it at first—the crust has been removed, and what kind of bread doesn’t have crust? He brings it up to eye level to inspect its innards, which consist of a mixture of honey and something else Wonwoo can’t seem to put his finger on.

 

“Oh, it’s a sandwich,” Soonyoung tells him, the words muffled through a bite of his own food. “Peanut butter and honey.”

 

“You make butter out of peanuts?” He remembers learning about butter after seeing Soonyoung spread it onto a piece of bread back at the cottage, once. The crust had been intact as it should be that time, though.

 

“You’ll like it.”

 

Wonwoo takes a tentative bite from a corner of one triangle. A switch is flipped, and he feels immediately grateful that this sandwich is crustless, as it would surely have only served as a needless barrier between his mouth and the taste he’s experiencing. Maybe there’s something to be said for this notion of crustless bread. The sweetness of the honey hits him first, before it melds with the strong flavor and crunch of the peanut butter—he wonders if regular butter crunches like that, too? Just a flash of panic flickers across Wonwoo’s face at the unnerving sensation of the peanut butter sticking to the roof of his mouth, but it resolves itself as he chews, and he’s left feeling a little silly for thinking he was about to choke.

 

“This is even better than honey and rose petal leaf wraps,” he says excitedly, twisting off the top of the honey jar. Wonwoo pulls the rest of the triangle apart and places each half neatly over the discarded plastic wrap, then scoops an extra spoonful of honey and begins spreading it liberally over the already thick layer.

 

Soonyoung gives a big laugh, popping two blueberries into his mouth at once. “I already gave you twice as much honey is on mine, you know.”

 

* * *

 

 

_jasmine._

 

“There must be some way to speed it up,” Soonyoung whines, with a look of determination. All but one of the flowers have formed their buds, and he’s been trying to no avail to coax a solution out of Wonwoo that doesn’t exist.

 

Wonwoo puts his arm around Soonyoung’s shoulders, to which Soonyoung twists to face him. “Sometimes they just go at their own pace,” he says, trying his best to make his voice come out soothingly, “it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. If you were, I would’ve figured it out by now, right?”

 

Soonyoung nods, but bites his lip, eyes flickering momentarily back to the flowers. “Can you check one more time? Just in case there’s something we can do?”

 

Keeping his arm around Soonyoung, Wonwoo peers closer to the sprout in question. He focuses his eyes and brings his free hand to the stem, fingertips grazing it with care. Its energy feels strong, no sign of being sick or stunted for any particular reason. For good measure, Wonwoo lightly drags his finger over the stem of a different flower, which emits the same aura of health as the less developed one.

 

“It’s really okay, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo says. “The only thing to do is wait and keep an eye on it, unless you want me to magically enhance it… which I can, if you want?” He already knows the answer, of course, but it’s _so hard_ to see Soonyoung frustrated when he has the power to change it with a simple wave of his hand. Even if he’s pretty sure that this time at least seventy five percent of the issue is Soonyoung’s own impatience versus worry.

 

“No!” Soonyoung exclaims, before taking a deep breath. “I mean… unless it’s the same by the end of the week? Maybe.”

 

To take Soonyoung’s mind off of the woes of gardening, Wonwoo suggests that they both walk around the meadow and collect as many stray dandelions as they can. The plan is simple—he’s going to teach Soonyoung how to make a flower crown, although he remains vague about what the project is when Soonyoung questions him. He catches Soonyoung ogling Wonwoo’s own flower crown nearly every day with shining eyes and, actually, he’s been planning to make a specialized flower crown for Soonyoung, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. This one will make a decent placeholder until then, he thinks.

 

“How many do we need?” Soonyoung calls out to him from another spot in the meadow, tucking three dandelions into his already overflowing jean pocket.

 

Wonwoo looks him over, then shouts back, “I think this is plenty!” Truth be told, he’s planning to just grow some more himself if they haven’t gathered enough by now, because picking dandelions is a monotonous business and dandelions are just about the quickest and easiest plants to conjure up.

 

When he and Soonyoung meet in the middle of the meadow, they both sit down and begin compiling their dandelions in what quickly builds to a mound. Soonyoung pulls them out of his pockets in squished handfuls that leave Wonwoo thinking his plan to create more dandelions is _definitely_ going to need to be put into action, lest the crown end up looking wilted. In hindsight, maybe making the project a surprise wasn’t the best idea. He casually sticks his hand palm-down out to his side and starts waving his finger, bringing up a patch of dandelions beneath it amounting to about twenty, for the moment.

 

“We’re going to make a crown for you,” Wonwoo explains, attention back to Soonyoung. “It’s pretty easy, just need to get it started…” He picks up three dandelions with relatively sturdy-looking stems and aligns them together, then moves his finger over them and watches as they intertwine to create a base. “There.”

 

“If you can do that, why don’t we just make the whole thing with magic?” Soonyoung plays with one of the more squished-looking dandelions from the pile, twisting at its stem.

 

“You told me not to use it for things I should be _teaching_ you, Soonyoung.” Wonwoo’s nose crinkles up with a grin at his own incredible retort.

 

With another wiggle of his finger, Wonwoo adds three more dandelions to the crown, to thicken it with another layer. Then, he takes a few more and starts to braid them into the others by hand, stem over stem, while Soonyoung watches the movements of his hands.

 

Wonwoo places the crown in Soonyoung’s lap with an expectant look on his face. “See, it’s the same pattern all the way through.”

 

Soonyoung takes it into his hand, grasping at dandelions with the other. After a short time of scrutinizing the work Wonwoo has already done (five Soonyoung blinks’ worth of time, by Wonwoo’s count) Soonyoung begins his attempt at tying more dandelions into the others. He tries to do it as quickly as Wonwoo had, though, and his fingers become clumsy with the pattern, resulting in one dandelion stem looped around two others, none of which are joined with Wonwoo’s. His index finger only narrowly avoids being tied into the mess.

 

He lets out a frustrated whine. It’s admittedly cute, and Wonwoo flashes him a fond smile.

 

Wonwoo selects fresh dandelions from his self-grown patch and gives them to Soonyoung. His hands ghost over Soonyoung’s to guide them in weaving the braid of stems, just barely touching, but it’s enough to make Wonwoo to feel a bit lightheaded with _feelings_. “You just kind of bend them up,” he demonstrates, “then keep moving the ones on the sides behind the middle one, until you run out.”

 

He stills his hands and waits while Soonyoung tries to replicate what he’s been taught, ready to jump back in if needed. This time, Soonyoung is slower and steadier, fingers threading stem over stem (over stem) methodically. Wonwoo feels a swell of pride when Soonyoung approaches the ends of the stems with no missteps to be seen.

 

Soonyoung turns his head toward Wonwoo. “What do I do now?” He holds the crown by the ends of the stems, pinching them together so they don’t unravel.

 

“Here, just…” Wonwoo curves his finger over the stems until they’re knotted tightly with the upper layer of dandelions. “Magic is okay for that part, because it’s a pain otherwise.”

 

It’s only when he feels a light pressure that Wonwoo realizes instead of leaning his other hand on the ground, he’d lowered it directly onto Soonyoung’s.

 

They’re palm to palm, Soonyoung’s fingers curling up and squeezing gently over the top of Wonwoo’s hand with their thumbs lazily resting over each other. Wonwoo’s breath hitches. He’s never touched Soonyoung’s hands so directly before, and he’s worried it may trigger some sort of sensory overload, because suddenly his face is almost alarmingly hot. Still, he feels the corners of his lips dig into his cheeks in a smile he can’t will himself to even attempt to contain.

 

Shakily, Wonwoo drags his fingertips over Soonyoung’s skin before pressing into it with a squeeze of his own. Soonyoung hasn’t wavered, applying the same steady pressure until, oh, he’s holding on more firmly now, and his thumb traces a couple of invisible circles on Wonwoo’s before clasping over it at the knuckle. Wonwoo hazards a look into Soonyoung’s eyes, which are now curved into crescents as he beams, looking more confident than his reddened cheeks would otherwise suggest.

 

Wonwoo thinks that Soonyoung’s hands are softer than any flower petal or butterfly’s wing he’s ever known.

 

* * *

 

_carnation._

 

Wonwoo carries two boxes, an arm wrapped around the bottom while his hand rests against the one above to keep it steady. The box on top is plastered with leaves, stuck together with tree sap adhesive and adorned with the largest sunflower he’s ever been able to grow on his own. The other is bigger and heavier, not so extravagantly decorated but instead pastel green in color and tied around the sides with twine.

 

Today is the day of the carnations—the day of _Soonyoung_ —and Wonwoo has spent several nights poring over books pertaining to human birthday traditions from the library back home. Wonwoo gathers that the biggest factors of such a celebration are gifts and cake, so he made sure to have both in order in time for the occasion.

 

Getting a human-standard cake was the tricky part; he’d had to persuade Junhui to get in contact with an old friend, whose friend knew how to get Wonwoo in touch with an elf. Luckily, the elf, Seokmin, was delighted to take on the project and promised to have it ready in time in exchange for a few simple treats from the fairy realm.

 

He reaches the meadow earlier than their usual meeting time, instead trekking straight through it to Soonyoung’s cottage. Walking up to the door, he stumbles and nearly trips over a root of the whitebeam, letting out a loud, “Mother Nature!” as he rights himself. The boxes remain unscathed in his arms, held tightly to his chest, but the element of birthday surprise is lost when Soonyoung’s alarmed face pops up in the window from inside. How could a rowan betray him like this?

 

Soonyoung emerges from the cottage barefoot, wearing only a worn soft sleeveless white shirt and black shorts. His hair is mussed and sticking out in the back. He raises a fist to rub the sleep of out his eyes. Had Soonyoung’s aura not already been Wonwoo’s favorite, the way it looks right now would have made it so by a landslide. The carnations are even greater in number than most days, layers of them closely knit together like a wall leaving no space surrounding Soonyoung’s body uncovered. As he steps further outside, he’s all gold and honey, glimmering with light from head to toe. It’s amplified by the drops of morning dew that rest delicately on the petals of each carnation, reflecting the sunlight .

 

Wonwoo’s fingers twitch over the gift he’s prepared. His chest feels tight, even after shifting the boxes to not lean on it. Has any fairy ever gone blind from staring directly at a powerful aura before?

 

Soonyoung gives a sleepy, lopsided smile. His eyes are squeezed most of the way shut while they adjust to the light. “Those are for me?”

 

“Happy birthday, Soonyoung!” He returns the smile, and he really wishes he weren’t carrying these boxes right now because he’s feeling the need to hold onto his crown for support.

 

The two of them end up sitting on the bench outside after Soonyoung retrieves what he refers to as a “portable table” but is definitely the nightstand from his bedroom. Wonwoo rests both boxes on top of it with almost no room to spare. Its little drawer is cracked open enough for Wonwoo to get a glimpse of the edges of two plates, as well as a pair of forks and one knife placed on top. Soonyoung apparently didn’t think it necessary to empty it beforehand, as it’s also still full of unmatched socks, wrapped candies, and stray spools of thread. Does Soonyoung even know how to sew?

 

“You should open this one first.” Wonwoo picks up the leaf-wrapped box and places it in Soonyoung’s lap. “Wait, is that right? Presents first?”

 

“Presents can definitely be first,” Soonyoung says with enthusiasm, fingers already fumbling with the leaves. He pauses, unsticks the sunflower from the lid, and tucks it behind his ear before returning to his attempt at unwrapping. In a way, with the flower being so huge, it looks kind of ridiculous. It’s already slipping and the stem looks like it’s digging into Soonyoung’s shoulder. But on the other hand, the sunflower is very bright and Soonyoung himself is also very bright. Wonwoo isn’t able to take his eyes off him until he hears a loud noise of accomplishment when Soonyoung digs a fingernail underneath the one last leaf that stands between him and the gift. He pries it up and lifts the lid off the box, all of the tampered with leaves gently bending in over the rim.

 

When he looks inside, Soonyoung’s eyes go wide for only a split second before his entire face shifts to pure joy. He’s quick to pull it out, resting it on his thighs with each thumb and index finger looped around it by the sides. Soonyoung gazes down at it, brushing a thumb softly across a section of flowers.

 

He looks at Wonwoo with twinkling eyes. “You made this?”

 

Wonwoo grins back. “I’ve wanted to give you one for a while, I thought this was a good opportunity.”

 

Soonyoung eagerly raises the flower crown and places it atop his head, squishing the sunflower down a bit. It’s exceptionally thick, layered with a rainbow of dawn-hued carnations Wonwoo had matched to the best of his ability to Soonyoung’s. They do blend in almost seamlessly, now that Wonwoo sees the crown together with the aura. The main difference is the lack of natural glow from the flower crown, but the gold in Soonyoung’s hair gives the illusion of there being one, anyway. If Soonyoung is already beautiful on his own, Wonwoo thinks he looks ethereal now, like this—all shimmer and seemingly endless warmth.

 

“I really am Kwon Soonyoung of the carnations, now,” Soonyoung proclaims, proudly.

 

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow. “You already were. That’s your name.”

 

“Yeah, but,” Soonyoung looks at him like this is the most obvious thing in the world, “now I look the part. Like a prince.”

 

He isn’t wrong. If the realm of the fae still had royalty, Wonwoo hopes they’d look exactly like Soonyoung does in this moment.

 

Wonwoo scrunches his nose up, equal parts amused and endeared. “So it’s a good present?”

 

“Of course! I love it. Thank you.” The crown droops slightly over his forehead, so he nudges it back up with the side of his hand.

 

Once the empty gift box is moved neatly beside Soonyoung’s end of the bench, Wonwoo starts on untying the cake box while Soonyoung digs the plates and utensils out of the drawer. There really isn’t enough room for anything else with the cake taking up the surface of the nightstand, so Soonyoung places one plate and fork on Wonwoo’s lap and keeps the other set on his own. Soonyoung peers over the box as Wonwoo pulls the twine off and discards it by shoving it, bunched up, into the drawer.

 

All of the hearsay about elves being impeccable bakers must be true, because the cake is even better than Wonwoo had imagined. It looks similar to the pictures of birthday cakes in the books he’s read, round and probably too large for two people. It’s chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, with a honey filling underneath in addition to a glistening drizzle of honey over the top. In bright yellow frosting, it reads _Happy Birthday Soonyoung_ in the center. Wonwoo looks at Soonyoung to gauge his reaction; Soonyoung has his mouth open in awe, fingers loose around the handle of the knife.

 

“This looks _delicious_ ,” Soonyoung says. “Did you make this, too?”

 

Wonwoo shakes his head. “No, I hired an elf to make it.”

 

“ _What._ Mingyu seriously was telling the truth?”

 

Soonyoung cuts two slices from the cake and gives the first (and bigger) slice to Wonwoo, which Wonwoo believes goes entirely against birthday tradition, but the gesture also gives him that now familiar fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach. His slice has the _on_ and half of the _y_ from _Soonyoung_ on it, while Soonyoung’s has the _So_.

 

They’re both chewing their respective first bites when Soonyoung makes a sudden noise, muffled by the cake in his mouth. “I still have to make a wish!”

 

He starts fishing through the nightstand drawer, mumbling about how he’s “sure there are candles in here somewhere”. (There aren’t.) Wonwoo looks at the grass and gets an idea. With his palm facing the grass, he moves his finger to produce a sprout, which turns into a dandelion with more waves. When it matures enough, white and fluffy with seeds, Wonwoo ceases growing it and plucks it from the ground.

 

“Here,” Wonwoo holds the dandelion puff out to Soonyoung, “these work for wishes, too.”

 

Soonyoung happily accepts it, then holds his other hand out for Wonwoo to take. Wonwoo laces his fingers together with Soonyoung’s pudgier ones.

 

“Make the wish with me, okay?” Soonyoung still has a dot of chocolate frosting left on his upper lip, which he pokes his tongue out to swipe away.

 

“Aren’t you not supposed to say what it is?” Wonwoo squeezes Soonyoung’s hand. He feels like he’s never going to get used to how soft those hands are. Does Soonyoung rub beeswax on them every morning, or what?

 

Soonyoung hums. “You can just wish for my wish to come true.”

 

With the dandelion raised to his puckered lips, Soonyoung closes his eyes and holds Wonwoo’s hand more tightly. Wonwoo shuts his eyes as well, just as Soonyoung starts to blow and scatter the wispy dandelion seeds into the air.

 

_I wish that Soonyoung’s wish will come true._

 

* * *

 

_sweet briar._

 

“Make sure you hold onto me.” Wonwoo tugs on Soonyoung’s sleeve, to which Soonyoung wraps himself around Wonwoo’s arm.

 

“What happens if it doesn’t work?”

 

“You’d just… still be here, I guess?” There’s not really a precedent for bringing humans along through the portal that Wonwoo is aware of. He’s probably not supposed to be doing this in the first place, but it’s more the type of issue of being ‘frowned upon’ than ‘forbidden’. “I’ll come right back, if that happens.”

 

Wonwoo presses his fingers around his earlobe and pulls, leaning in a fraction closer to Soonyoung. The two of them vanish from the ring in a lustrous cloud of gold and silver blended together in the air. When they rematerialize on the other side of the portal, they stand in a similar circle of mushrooms, except these ones are bright blue. It’s also located on a moderately busy street corner, surrounded by fairies in multicolored flower crowns and flowy fabrics walking every which way.

 

Soonyoung adjusts his own crown, which is crooked from slipping down over his right ear. He’d shown up this morning wearing it, supposedly for the purpose of not sticking out as being human, but that doesn’t explain why he’s been wearing it all day every day since his birthday. He starts taking in his new surroundings, turning around in a small circle to look in all directions and spinning Wonwoo, whose arm he’s still clinging to, along with him.

 

“This is _so cool_ ,” Soonyoung whispers, head slanted close to Wonwoo’s ear. He slides one hand down Wonwoo’s arm to interlock their fingers, leaving the other to rest at his side.

 

They turn right from the corner and walk down the cobblestone street, which Soonyoung is quick to excitedly point out is sparkly. Huh. Wonwoo has never noticed that human roads _aren’t_ paved with glitter.

 

“You can see everyone’s flowers like mine, right?” Soonyoung asks, suddenly. When Wonwoo nods, Soonyoung continues. “Can you tell me about some? Like…,” he discreetly points in the direction of a fairy around their age on the other side of the street, with long black hair and surrounded by blurs of purple, “that one?”

 

“Lavender, December 3rd. Kind of a dark blue glow, like a sapphire.”

 

Soonyoung’s eyes light up. “Okay, what about the guy over there?” He nudges his head up to gesture to the man a stretch of road ahead of them.

 

“Those are yellow tulips,” Wonwoo squints, “but I don’t think they have a glow? May 17th.”

 

“What do yours look like, anyway? I know they’re white roses, but I mean _yours_ , you know?” Soonyoung looks him up and down, as though trying to find a way to see for himself.

 

“It’s… _bright_ , but the opposite of yours.” His words come out somewhat disjointed while he tries to find the right words. “Yours is a lot of gold and rainbow, right, but mine is white and silver. It looks like I’m covered in snow, maybe.”

 

“Like Jack Frost?”

 

“You know Jack Frost?”

 

“Jack Frost is real?”

 

Wonwoo laughs and grips Soonyoung’s hand more tightly; Soonyoung returns the same pressure. “He is. I don’t think I look like him, though.”

 

Farther down the road, they stop in front of Wonwoo’s favorite café. The front is made of brick, shimmering to a lesser degree than the streets, with vines curling around the rails on either side of a small set of stone steps. Upon pushing open the door to walk inside, a set of chimes sounds from above their heads. Soonyoung, whose strength is not subtlety, can’t seem to help himself from gazing all around the café, lingering on each detail. He gets particularly caught up in the tables, which each have a hole in the center through which flowers grow up straight from beneath the floor. Once he’s fixated on those, the only thing that sways his attention is when he sees Wonwoo paying with a handful of rose quartz. The employee who rings up their order gives Soonyoung a puzzled look their whole way out, with Wonwoo carrying their food in a green cloth bag around his wrist.

 

Soonyoung spends most of the rest of the walk to Wonwoo’s house inquiring about types of fairy currency. “Is it only rose quartz? Which one is worth the most?”

 

“From lowest to highest, it’s turquoise, amethyst, rose quartz, tourmaline, opal, amber.” Wonwoo pulls his crystal pouch out of his pocket and hands it off for Soonyoung to look through to his heart’s content. Soonyoung struggles to maneuver in such a way that allows him to examine the crystals with only his one free hand, however, so he ends up sticking the pouch into his own pocket for later rather than let go of Wonwoo.

 

The house Wonwoo shares with Junhui is mint green, on a whole road lined with other pastel-toned homes. Its front door and windowpanes are a pristine white, looking like they’ve never gathered a speck of dirt or dust since they were installed. The roof has a light sheen to it, the building material infused with a lesser amount of glitter than the street and sidewalk out front.

 

The door of the tiny white fence is dwarfed by an impressive arch of bright pink climbing roses right above it, with more of the flowers winding themselves over the entire rest of the fence. Wonwoo unlatches it, and Soonyoung practically throws himself under the arch, making Wonwoo lurch forward along with him. The rest of the front garden consists mainly of two large patches of flowers, separated by a neat, pebbled walkway. All of the flowers are in varying hues of red, purple, and pink.

 

Wonwoo guides him from beneath the arch to the back garden, which in Wonwoo’s opinion is the superior one, albeit much less manicured. In fact, it’s a complete mess. While the front garden is intended to look pretty and showy for passersby, the back is something of a lawless land, used for floral growth experiments or for when either Wonwoo or Junhui gets frustrated with something. Sometimes a fairy’s just got to blow off steam by growing some flowers.

 

Instead of any distinct patches, just about the whole expanse of the yard save for the narrow pathway they’re walking on is covered in masses of flowers. There’s no color code to these ones, but bunches of all different shades haphazardly interspersed with each other.

 

“This… is my dream garden,” Soonyoung breathes out. He leans over the edge of the patch, his body bent nearly in half to get a more in-depth view. “I want the meadow to look exactly like this one day.”

 

Wonwoo grins wide across his face. “We could do that. For real, though. A lot of these ones are magically grown.”

 

“Maybe I should be the one teaching you how to grow them the right way,” Soonyoung teases, “from actual seeds.”

 

“I had to learn manual gardening before magic lessons advanced, you know.” Wonwoo scrunches his mouth into a fake pout. “You have to do it in school, they check at the end of each year.”

 

“Are these ones real?” Soonyoung pokes at his crown.

 

“Yes,” Wonwoo says, “the only enchantment is the glaze to keep them fresh.”

 

They navigate what little cleared space there is to reach the back door and walk inside, through the hallway past Wonwoo’s and Junhui’s bedrooms all the way to the living room. It smells both sweet and crisp, in the way rose petals do. All of the walls inside are painted in pastels, too; the hallway is soft pink, the living room is periwinkle, and the adjacent kitchen is a subtle yellow. The living room features two small white armchairs, but the majority of the seating space is made up of several cushions on the floor inbetween them, all positioned in a circle around a clear glass table. Wonwoo gathers up all but two of the cushions and stacks them up in a corner, having been left scattered from when Junhui had friends over the night before. He then drags the remaining cushions to sit side-by-side at the table, facing an expansive terrarium against the wall.

 

Junhui isn’t home at the moment, which Wonwoo is sort of thankful for. He’s a great friend, but every time Wonwoo tells him about Soonyoung, he insists on referring to the two of them as “star-crossed lovers”. No matter how many times Wonwoo tries to explain to him that ‘star-crossed’ doesn’t have the positive connotation he thinks it does, Junhui never seems to budge on it. _(“I heard there’s a whole human romance book about star-crossed lovers, Wonwoo. You of all people should know about this.”)_

 

The living room floor is covered in material that looks like a regular gray carpet, but feels like authentic soil to the touch. Soonyoung learns that when, as they’re both getting situated on their cushions, he presses a hand to the floor only to recoil in surprise at the sensation. Wonwoo laughs loudly with his nose crinkled, like it’s one of the funniest things he’s ever seen.

 

Wonwoo distributes their food across the table. There are bottled nectars for each of them, as well as individual bags of crispy baked taro. For their main lunches, Wonwoo ordered his usual from the café and took a guess at something he thinks Soonyoung will like—maple-sweetened leaf wraps with red bean filling, plus a side of lotus chips.

 

Soonyoung picks up one of the leaf wraps and with no hesitation bites off half of it at once, his cheeks puffed and full when he gives Wonwoo his approval via a thumbs up. Wonwoo smiles, almost smirks around a bite of his own meal. It’s a fluffy, cake-like fungus baked in honey until the exterior is crisp, then covered in a generous helping of a particularly sticky variety of honey. This type of honey happens to be Wonwoo’s favorite, with the only downside being that every time he eats it, his lips end up vaguely sticky with it for the rest of the day. It’s a small price to pay.

 

Between leaf wraps, Soonyoung drags the crystal pouch out from his pocket and empties it onto the floor beside him. He picks each type up one by one, turning them in his palm with his thumb to inspect their shape and glint. Wonwoo watches him with intrigue, taking slow bites of the taro snack.

 

“You said this kind is the most valuable, right?” Soonyoung holds up an amber stone with smooth edges.

 

Wonwoo nods, “It’s actually resin preserved from trees, so it’s especially precious to us over the others.”

 

Soonyoung scoots closer, until the edges of their cushions overlap, then twists himself around so he’s facing Wonwoo. Even then, he leans in, holding the stone out flat in his hand.

 

“The color is pretty, it looks like honey.” He folds his hand over Wonwoo’s and lets the stone fall into the other’s palm. Wonwoo curves his hand around Soonyoung’s.

 

“It looks like your hair.”

 

“My hair isn’t yellow!” Soonyoung pouts. He takes a pause. “Are you saying it’s pretty?”

 

Wonwoo shifts on his cushion to face Soonyoung. “Well, it is. Pretty, not yellow.”

 

Their knees touch, at this angle. When their eyes meet, Wonwoo’s hand twitches over Soonyoung’s in wanting to fidget with his crown, but he just grasps Soonyoung’s hand more securely. The way Soonyoung is looking at him feels somehow sweet and intense at once, a hint of a smile on his lips. Soonyoung starts to toy with the hem of Wonwoo’s shirt.

 

He curls his fingers tight into the fabric and leans his head in close, so close Wonwoo can feel him exhale for a split second before he presses his lips to Wonwoo’s. As it turns out, Soonyoung’s lips are soft. Why is every aspect of Soonyoung so soft? Wonwoo brings his hand up to rest over Soonyoung’s (also soft, like a cloud) cheek with minimal awkwardness.

 

Wonwoo feels a sudden burst of self-consciousness about his own sticky, definitely not very soft lips, but it fades when Soonyoung pushes himself somehow even closer. He drags his hand down and back over the side of Soonyoung’s neck to the smoothness of his nape, the ends of Soonyoung’s hair ghosting over his skin. Soonyoung sighs against Wonwoo’s lips.

 

They keep their faces near even after breaking the kiss, eyes shut and noses touching. Wonwoo is the first to move, to graze his lips over Soonyoung’s cheek. When they both pull back, Soonyoung’s lips are shiny with a touch of residue from the honey. Beneath the sheen, his lips are also red from the pressure, and Wonwoo suspects his own must look about the same.

 

Soonyoung sticks the tip of his tongue out over his bottom lip. “You have honey lips?”

 

Wonwoo laughs, flustered both by all that’s just happened and by Soonyoung’s words. “The fungus…” is the first thing he manages to get out.

 

“What?” Soonyoung peeks at what’s left of Wonwoo’s food. “That’s fungus? You kissed me with fungus mouth,” he deadpans. Soonyoung can’t hold a straight face, though, so he averts eye contact the moment he starts to break into a smile.

 

“No, you said I have a honey mouth!” Wonwoo squeezes Soonyoung’s hand through the remainder of his snickering. He really wishes he were able to sound more smug about having certified honey lips. “Also, you’re the one who kissed me.”

 

* * *

 

_geranium._

 

As of this morning, every flower in their little patch is in full bloom. Most reached that point over the past week or so, but the same one that had been slow to bud kept to its own pace all the while. Soonyoung is ecstatic when they check on everything and see how its grown, vibrant orange petals fanned out all the way.

 

He’s barely stopped talking about Wonwoo’s backyard garden since the first day he saw it, how long it would take to hand-plant that many flowers, how much margin for error they should account for since he’s still relatively new to this and the meadow is a huge space, after all.

 

“I think by next summer we could fill it out well,” Soonyoung says, his head nestled over Wonwoo’s chest. “Not all the way, but a lot, right, if we’re dedicated?”

 

They lay together right beside the garden with their crowns placed neatly in the grass above their heads. Wonwoo has been gradually arriving earlier and staying later—Junhui won’t stop teasing him about “deserting his roommate”. Right now, it’s dusk, a waxing crescent moon faintly visible overhead within a blend of blues, purples, and grays. The occasional firefly hovers around, blinking yellow light before eventually disappearing from sight across the meadow.

 

“We’ll definitely get there,” Wonwoo assures him. “Maybe put a focus on perennials, to start with?”

 

Soonyoung hums. “I want carnations. I didn’t know they were my flowers when I was planting, I would’ve made a whole other section of them.”

 

“There are perennial carnations, we can put them all over the place.” He runs a hand idly up and down Soonyoung’s side.

 

The thought of Soonyoung standing among a huge patch of carnations makes Wonwoo’s heartbeat speed up. Wonwoo is positive that Soonyoung’s natural carnations are still the most beautiful he’ll ever see, but he believes any flower grown with Soonyoung’s love and care could put others to shame. Even the patch, tiny as it is, has a certain quality to it that Wonwoo has no explanation for, other than that Soonyoung is the one who tends to them. They’re not only pretty, with delicate petals and vivid colors, but also resilient. Soonyoung has questioned at times if it’s to do with Wonwoo’s prior uses of magic on them, but even those he never touched with it are just as strong.

 

“I just can’t wait,” Soonyoung sighs. “There’s going to be so many.”

 

Wonwoo is definitely in love with a human.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter @hoshipocus! ♡


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